I am hoping that among my readers and people they know, there may be some historians of Western civilization from the 17th century to these times, particularly the history of diplomacy (see below). It is with great optimism that I ask this. I hope they can offer some examples from the past which identify events similar enough to our times, to give us some ideas about how to cope with our current situation of polycrises (see The Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University cascadeinstitute.org), i.e., the crisis which trips the next crisis which trips the next one, etc.
As I see it, there are at least these several elements which cause the confusion of our times:
1. Strong men in several countries have put into play a return to power as their ultimate goals, eschewing all the ideals of the post-WWII multi-national organizations, and the ideals of some individual nations. These individuals bring to their sides abnormally wealthy individuals and sovereign corporations, and others, who profit from how these strong men run things. There are also lower-level strong men and women who use wars, diseases, control of some natural resources, and otherwise peaceful things as weapons of war. The overall result is colossal instability world-wide, terrible economic circumstances for many, desecration of any sense of human rights, starvation, massive migration and displacement outside national borders and inside them.
2. Warfare and technology have taken new turns:
a. the now common, ordinary ability among even less wealthy powers, to throw ballistic missiles and drones great distances, some at unstoppable hypersonic speeds, to any target anywhere, making obsolete many aircraft, ships, and armies of people, and eliminate the need to “declare war.” They thereby make warfare cheap: they no longer need to raise, train, deploy, and support armies, air forces, or naval ships or submarines. Drones, guided by people who at least know military strategies, but who need not exhibit any personal physical courage, will do it all.
“Military targets” may become a vague, by-gone term. Instead, targets will be locations of weapons systems, their manufacturing sites and the sites of places which design them and places which produce their parts; the people who design and produce them and their families; the methods of transporting them (roads, railroads, rivers and other waters); the financiers who fund them; and the policy-makers, spies, and military commanders. Civilian residences, places of assembly, infrastructure, medical facilities and features which make possible daily life, may also be targets.
But before the civilian targets become useful, there will be alternatives such as trade and industrial policies (How to Win a Trade War: an Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy, Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Brown), manipulation of currencies, subversion of political processes, disinformation campaigns, and cyberwar (see below). The rapacious may be satisfied with the results of these.
But before all this becomes too chaotic even for the perpetrators, everyone will need to cope with fake information and intelligence created by AI (https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false-intelligence-china-ship). So talking (https://uponreconsidering.blog/2020/05/29/the-usefulness-of-talking/) , i.e., diplomacy, may become more important and useful in the conduct of political and international affairs.
b. AI is able to guide the weapons, devise strategies for them, select targets, and develop competing strategies against other AIs, or perhaps join with them to form their own “side.”
c. Violence, including remotely hiring people to do violence, is being fostered from outside the borders of countries by electronic communication (some originating in bots and AI), so that our own culture no longer insulates our young people from malevolent intentions.
d. Cyberwar is now continuous, again without war being declared, and affects industries, basic infrastructures, and military functions. (https://uponreconsidering.blog/2025/11/16/do-wars-stop-people-with-vast-power-no-war-is-become-our-state-of-being/)
e. Warfare is now thought of as existing from the bottom of the oceans to “cislunar” activity (https://apnews.com/article/space-weapons-china-moon-caine-fc21f6917cb5d7bb403dbea920e8e3a5)
3. There are destructive massive interventions by AI and social media into our society. (https://uponreconsidering.blog/2025/02/25/reconsidering-again-part-1/)
Many people are so lonely that they turn to machines for company, and sometimes harm themselves and others while under the influence of them. Many people are fooled by the machines and far-away malevolent people, into losing significant sums of money, believing lies about government, ethnic groups, and politicians, to the point at which truth is an unknown and unrecognizable thing. (https://uponreconsidering.blog/2025/07/29/the-inability-to-tell-truth-amid-so-much-falsehood-new-format-for-when-there-is-little-time-for-reading-2/)
4. There is “Rogue” AI. Read almost anything to learn about this. I won’t bother to cite sources. Yes, there are nuances in all this and much detail to understand, but the current gist is that the “problem of alignment,” i.e. keeping AI within the limits of humanly intended use, has not been solved, and we learn more each day, but long after the events, about how very unsolved it is.
AI’s physical creation and storage facilities (euphemistically called “the cloud”) need massive amount of new energy, occupy huge areas of land, and consume water at a rate which threatens water supplies for our normal purposes, while the climate crisis already reduces our water supplies as a normal matter.
5. The climate crisis promises to further increase, (beyond what the powerful cause) starvation, disease, and homelessness on massive scales. This is brought on by natural circumstances such as carbon release by decaying forests and burnt ones, by the release of methane from bogs and melting permafrost, and other natural processes. But it is also caused by human activity which burns carbon fuels and casts emissions into the skies, water, land, and outer space, while enriching many people including the astonishingly rich. Much of the “natural causes” are exacerbated by the human causes.
Countries around the world have learned that what held us together in the recent years were
morality,
ethics,
moral courage,
compassion, and
conventions,
more than institutions and laws have done.
6. Diseases spread across borders and throughout huge distances with fantastic speed, causing suffering at levels which exhaust human compassion, medical ability, and even the wherewithal to comfort the ill.
We seem to be unable to get back those qualities in the conduct of human affairs. All that remains to many of us are craven cruelty, violence, and imposing suffering on many.
I ask, quite seriously, and with great optimism: can you historians show us similar situations in history which we might examine to help us form strategies, especially including talking (diplomacy), to stop all this madness, and replace it with better values, intentions, and actions?
Please let us hear from you soon.
